


Risk/Reward

by dyrimthespeaker



Category: The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)
Genre: Character Study, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-15 19:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17534582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyrimthespeaker/pseuds/dyrimthespeaker
Summary: Luke knows he’s playing a dangerous game, knows what it’s cost him, knows what he’s done to everyone in his life. But he’ll keep taking that risk, chancing the ups and downs, the highs and the lows. He must.





	Risk/Reward

**Author's Note:**

> Lets get sad and poetic up in here! 
> 
> Thanks to Shreya as always for encouragement and feedback.

Risk/reward.

Late night, dingy, flashy, dark. You feeling lucky, punk? Lay your cards out, take a gamble.

Throw the dice, throw the dice, throw the dice.

It’s a coin toss.

Heads, he wins, he’s high. He’s floating, he’s numb, he’s euphoric. Unstoppable, safe, beyond reach. Wrapped up in a chemical safety that envelops him, insulates him, keeps everything that’s wrong at bay.

Tails, he loses, bad batch, overdose, dopesick, tell it to the gutter. Cry and vomit and let that cold dark alley hear his woes. She won’t care, she’s heard the death rattle of a hundred, a thousand junkies before him. And all of those still yet to come. His piteous cries mean nothing, but do it anyway. Sob to her like she’s going to embrace him, cloak him in the dark. Hold him like the mother he barely had.

She won’t.

Risk/reward.

Steal everything he can get his hands on. Start small, start simple. Lose control.

Spiral, steal it all. Bigger and bigger, bolder and bolder. Guilt and regret building. Steal anyway.

Steal because he’s got nothing else he can do. He’s unstable, he’s a wreck. And he needs. He needs. He needs the money with a desperation unparalleled by even the lowest of his guilt-fueled bouts of self-loathing. He needs the drugs. He needs and so he steals. He has to.

Make it so he can’t be trusted without a watchful eye on him. Can’t be left alone. Can’t stay with family, he’s got sleight hands and an ever hungry habit. They know.

Risk/reward.

Take like a leech. Nothing reciprocal here. Take advantage.

Promise this is it, promise he’ll be better. Take and take and take based on those promises. Break every one.

Take until there’s nothing left, they’ve given all they can. Take from that used up emptiness where good will once was, scrape the bottom of the barrel, take everything he can get.

And then take more.

Risk/reward.

Lie.

Lie like his life depends on it. It does.

He needs money, he can’t get money. Lie.

Where was he last night? What’s going on with him? Is he okay? Lie.

Lie until he can’t tell what’s true, what’s false. Lie until it’s realer than anything. Lie and lie and lie until he chokes on it. No one ever believed him anyway, maybe he’s always lied. Maybe he’s never known the truth and all he can do is lie. Falsehood to falsehood, childish fibs to cruel adult lies. Until no one believes a word out of his mouth, not even him. Keep himself warm with the half truths, they’re all he’s got.

Risk/reward.

Break it all. Break everything. Break promises, break trust, break in, break out, break down.

Worst of all, break her heart.

Break himself until he’s shattered, break his veins until they’re so busted he has to find new places to shoot up, break out of rehab so he can do more damage. Break everything he touches, whether he means to or not. Leave the pieces scattered in his wake, busted doors, jimmied windows, and the intangible damage that can’t be seen, only felt. The distrust, the anger, the disappointment, the face of all those who know he’ll break things. It’s inevitable. 

And then the crash, the internal breaking point, the despair overwhelming, but still he doesn't stop.

Force her to bear witness to the breaking until it breaks her, until he breaks her.

She’ll forgive, but he’ll never forget.

He breaks something else.

Risk/reward.

It’s a coin toss. It’s a gamble. It’s a calculated risk.

Heads up, tails up.

Lose and you lose it all, you lose everything, you lose yourself.

But win and kid, you got it golden.

He knows the terms, he knows the chances. He knows the players, knows the game. He’s been down this road a hundred, a thousand times before. Laid his cards out, took the gamble. He’s lost, he’s won, he’s played again and again and again.

He’ll chance it, he has to. There’s no options, it’s a need. Life is choking him and it’s the only way out and sure, it’s a rigged system, it’s flawed. But it’s what’s there, it’s what he does, it’s what he knows. Destruction and salvation, a double edged sword, a balm, a toxin, a remedy, a poison.

He knows the cost.

Risk/reward.


End file.
